Today marks the one month anniversary of unarmed teenager Michael Brown's tragic death in Ferguson, Missouri. To help raise awareness and continue to bring attention to the case, Emanuel Smith, one of the key witnesses to the murder, releases his song, "Let Us Pray," a tribute to Brown. Not only was Smith a key witness to the murder, but he was also the individual who was originally live-tweeting the incident, which helped bring social media attention to the case in the first place.
On the emotional song, Emanuel, aka TheePharoah, raps about the experiences he faced during and following the tragic shooting of Brown in Ferguson, with lines like, "They throwing tear gas, I'm hearing gun shots and duck em all, mom crying dad worried, they don't want their son involved, how you rob a store violently without a gun involved?"
Listen to the song, watch Emanuel's interview with Vice, and read his full statement about why he made the record below.
I made the song in consideration of what had happened. It moved me enough to express it in lyrics, because it was real life issues. It could've been me, I'm not even 2 years older than him, I had a small act of police stereotyping as a child, so its a real struggle. I just wanted to show this event effected me personally, and explain why it affected me, plus explain why I haven't come to the media about it.
